Waiting For Godot Full Video

Evaluation for WAITING FOR GODOT

Before our first afternoon performance. I was really worried about my parts because we had the pig just one week before today and I can't make myself to believe that this is happening so fast. Even though we had enough rehearsals, I still don't think it's enough because of the attendance of our group before. during the final week of our rehearsals, we basically rehearse on bits to bits to fix up every detail, especially focussing on Chloe's (the pig) role. She's been missing until one week before our show, it is the reason that makes us nervous.

We did a full run with finalised technical, dress and props from cues to cues, also from the beginning until the end. The overall result was unexpectedly amazing, voices were projected loud and clear enough. Chloe did a great job carrying those props, I was really nervous before because of the amount of props she needs to carry were quite a lot, it is possible to mess everything up during the performance if she did a mistake.


Here comes our first performance:

I used the space around my stool effectively, as I can't walk too far away from my stool, that would be too purposely for the audience. In order to use that space, I stand and sit in the middle while I'm speaking as if I'm trying to seek for the attention of Estragon and Vladimir. One tricky part throughout the whole performance was when I asked Lucky for the basket, it was a Fortnum and Mason basket, if I'm to take things out, the audience will not be able to see because of the lid. I exaggerated my actions when I took out the food by putting them high for Estragon and Vladimir (subtle: audience) to see.


feedback from the audience and my group
- My movements can be bigger, it shows how big a man I am and to add more funny sources into the play.
- Enlarge the contrast while I'm ordering Lucky and while being overly narcissistic to the guys.
- When I'm done eating, I can try putting the bone into my pocket unwittingly, so the moment I take out my pipe, I will find the bone in there instead, it's a good idea of entertaining the audience with my clumsiness.
- Facial expressions were on point to the characters on stage but not the audience,  I should find a way to show more of myself to the audience.



In between shows 

I was suffering from my cold for the past few days and had tried to eat clean and stay healthy for as long as it can last. But because of the constant speaking during rehearsals and some shouting during the first performance, my voice started to crack a little, it became more serious. The tone of my voice was much deeper than how I usually speak. I was panic and really nervous with that husky voice I am going to perform with.

We did another full run with ourselves, everything during the final rehearsal was in control. One hour before our second performance, we played some games to get ourselves relaxed, we also communicate like we're already in the world of Waiting for Godot. This is to help us get into character more quickly. What I decided to do with my voice is since I couldn't get rid of it, I decided to just play with it, because it sounded just like an old man. Somehow it might help with my performance.



Here comes our second performance:

In this performance, I focused more on the feedback I received earlier. I even took some long pauses to add some tension in the atmosphere before I say something silly, I was able to overhear some laughter from the audience. There was one mistake I did throughout the show, when I was trying to put my bone into my pocket I did not realize that putting stuff into my pocket can be so difficult when I'm sitting down. I dropped the bone on the floor instead, it even slid to the middle of the stage, when things I can't fix happened, I just get along with it, I wiped my hands with my handkerchief and make some stretches at the back while Estragon and Vladimir were still talking. In this case, the audience will not notice that unplanned bone throwing.


What Went Well
My character was definitely more believable to watch other than my deep voice, I even walked like I had a fat tummy under my shirt. Even though I am the shortest in my group, I speak like I am the biggest and tallest. whenever I need to speak to the guys, I speak to them from quite a distance away so I do not need to raise my head up to them. Sometimes I even try to not look at them like I'm speaking to myself enjoying myself in my own story or smoking pipe or look into the sky. This time, I took my time speaking and walking further from my stool before I sit back down, this could let the audience to see who and where they need to be focussing, also a chance for Estragon and Vladimir to walk away from me showing how much they fear from getting too close to me.


Even better if
I never thought of involving the audience by having some interactions or breaking the fourth wall, Waiting for Godot can be a really funny and meaningless play if we play it well, but I think if we can play this without the fourth wall, it would've been more interesting for the audience. This is what I think we should've thought of while we were discussing about the play.



Overall:

I can't say this show was the best one I've ever performed throughout the course, but this is definitely a challenge for me. I've learned to adapt from the original show of Waiting for Godot and play it in my own style, to explore another side of the story. Everything I've been through working on this play was new, we don't get a teacher or director to help us all the time, so most of the work was done in how much we want them to be done. This was the most meaningful show that I've never expected we could do so well without much of the help from others. Other than putting in all skills we learned since the beginning of this course, those efforts we put into it were worth to talk about. We are our own leader in the group, whenever we're not feeling comfortable enough to the people or rules, we speak up and discuss to solve it. This is how our group manage to perform our show. It's a little society of Waiting for Godot.

Even though my mind is still changing whether or not to continue in the acting industry, the skills I've learned, for examples, the magic if: it helps me from easily understanding others' difficulties or happiness, voice projection: I'm able to control my voice at the suitable volume but still keep its energy in the same level at different places, etc. I think acting is an industry that is closest to our usual life, even though some story might be unbelievable, or overly dramatic but aren't those come out from a real human. Being dramatic is not an easy task, by understanding the story behind it makes you who you are. The base of acting is human life, without human, that life won't work. 

Unit 12 Proposal

Skill Audit

Throughout my first year on this course, experiences and skills that I possessed are way more interesting than I expected in the beginning. I picked up the essence of acting unwittingly, the improvements I never knew I have until others told me. From my very first performance, "Romeo and Juliet", I've experienced body movements like moving in slow motion and freeze frame. I learned to maintain the tension of my emotions while doing a freeze frame because the emotions tend to lay back a little when we are trying to freeze at one place for too long. Our class is lucky enough to be able to work with the Donmar theatre, during our sessions with Toby, one of the people from Donmar, I've learned not to be afraid for being different to other people because that's what makes me special. We did a lot of improvising on some specific sentences or words from the play "The York Realist", it is to stimulate our creativity in a more 'producing' way. I also performed "Three Sisters", as one of the sisters, Masha, I am the assertive one, which means the way I speak need to be confident enough, picking up all the ques improve the tension of my character in every scene I'm in. I played a part in "Fugee", I was cast as the refuge manager. The contrast between this character and the one in my previous performance is not much of a difference, just less confidence and more loving. It's repentant that our college couldn't get us a complete stage set of a children refuge, we will need to imagine most of the bigger set by ourselves, how I overcome looking around with no destination is I drew a rough map of where everything will be then I started to put myself into it.

Just before Christmas, we performed a classic play "A Christmas Carol", I was multi-rolling for a couple of characters, they were Solicitor, Mrs. Cratchits, Fred's wife, and random villager. It was a challenge for me as I need to come in and out of different characters, showing different ways of how each character walks or speaks to one another. Mrs. Cratchits and Fred's wife made the obvious difference throughout the play, a lower class housewife who raised six children, and an upper-class lady who is married to a rich man. My objectives in the play were to show the audience the unfairness in that society, yet not blaming god and ask for sympathy; and to show the cruelty side of it, about backstabbing, and fake personality of the upper-class people. My experiences have led me to the play "Waiting for Godot", instead of saying it 'led' me, it's more like I'm still willing to challenge on a theme I've never tried.

"Waiting for Godot" (a review after watching the film on youtube)

Likes

• Actors picking up ques naturally, like they've been living like this for their whole life. 
• Pozzo's attitude to Lucky is way more rude compare to Estragon and Vladimir, almost completely different. 
• There are a lot of awkward pauses throughout the play, but the silences seem really natural to watch.
• Lucky(the pig) was being expression-less the whole time, even when he's being touched or insulted by Pozzo. He amazed me by not even rolling his eyes for just once. 

Dislikes

• I got bored when only two of the actors in the beginning were speaking the whole time, as the contents they talked about were really random and unnecessary, I don't see the point of talking too much of that. 

Overall, I think the play is all about being awkward and lifeless. It was a special way of entertaining the audience, it does have many many funny bits in between to keep the audience awake. I think Waiting for Godot's main objective is to earn the confusion from the audience. 

Torn by Nathaniel Martello-White

This was the play our class decided to work on in the beginning. The setting of the play is modern day, all 9 characters from the play will sit in a circle in the middle of the stage, revealing each of their secrets, it's a similar concept like a support group. But instead, this is a family meeting hosted by one of the characters, Angel. She gathered all family members here wanting them to confront the truth about how and why they failed her.

What's in my mind when I first read about it?
The play started off intensively with the characters overlaying each other's line. I think it's because this play is not like any other play, it only had one scene, in order to keep the play fresh and interesting, pauses were reduced to its minimum. What happened before the meeting and what causes them hating each other is slowly told by their meeting. I get really confused about the characters at first, as they are all related to each other and have a different conflict with one another. One of the most difficulties about this play is the cues where each character speaks. If we were to pick this play, we will need to read through the scripts as many times as we can until we can smoothly pick up our cues. 

The reason we gave up on this play it's because some of us were not perfectly fitted due to our skin tone and races. Also, it's a big play that we couldn't get some member to guarantee that they will be in for rehearsals consistently. 

Our Country's Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker

We read through this play for a bit and our class got into a massive discussion because this play requires 24 casts and our class only got 12 which is obviously not enough, we then try to make everyone multi-role it. But in my opinion, the attendance of my class is never complete, if we somehow ended up choosing this, a full attendance will be needed, but we're not taking the risk that when someone is not shown up and we need to stand in for more roles, this will make our rehearsals even harder.

Noise by Alex Jones

Becky and Dan, newly-weds and parents to be. Full of hope, they're about to start a new life in the housing association flat they've just moved into. The only blot is the constant techno music pounding through the walls next door. Fault lines are exposed as the strain starts to show on Becky and Dan's relationship, reaching a climax as neighbour Matt comes crashing into their lives. 

I personally think this play is quite interesting, I do love the concept of acting as a family. But Abdul said he had performed the role as a family man in our previous performance and he's willing to explore a whole new type of role.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Why do I choose this play?

This is a two-act-play that requires only 5 characters, the significance of each character could simply affect the whole play, which I find it challenging as I’ve never done any performance like that in the past, a two hours play with only a few characters? When I first heard of it, I thought it must be a very boring play with a lot of talking, but when I do more research about it, it did not only change my mind, it has brought up the determination in me that always wanted to prove myself, to prove the enhancement in my acting by accepting scripts with higher difficulty. 

The endless waiting of two tramps on a country road for the elusive Godot, their boredom, and the meaningless repetition were shown in the script, the comedy in this play is unfolded realistically like the men had lived their lives this way for the past few decades. For the character Lucky, that I got most interest in him, it seems easy to obey the orders from his master, Pozzo, but it is somehow interesting to watch at when he’s doing things repetitively after each order. 

About my character... 

By reading the play, I could tell Pozzo is a very lonely man who owns a land and a slave and nothing else. When he first meets with Vladimir and Estragon, he shows the cruel side of himself by abusing Lucky and pulling him around with a rope on his neck. Pozzo can be compared with Estragon who also has awful memory that they both need to rely on the one next to them, Lucky and Vladimir. “He can no longer endure my presence. I am perhaps not particularly human, but who cares?” said Pozzo in act one, he is careless of the society because he considers himself above humanity, he is the materialist which would not care for the pain and troubles of Lucky. 

In act 1, he is willing to sell Lucky for a considerable price, but in the second act, the play reduces Pozzo to nothingness. He is blind, and he is now dependent upon Lucky. However, Lucky still serves his master no matter how bad he was treated by the blind man. The high contrast of Pozzo between act one and act two symbolical of the deterioration and fall of man. The powerful, self-amusing Pozzo has completely changed. 

Project action plan and timetable:


Planned timetable

5th February - read through whole play together, discuss about cuts 
8th February - finalize cuts.
Before March - find someone to be Lucky(the pig)
5th March - learnt lines(off script)
20th March - discuss about props and set
2nd April - are able to do a full run through
20th April - discuss about costumes
13th May - tech rehearsal, dress rehearsal
14th May - performance day



Action

Week no	Tasks	Notes
Feb 5 - 8 week 1	read through the play discuss about the storyline	make time to understand my role
Feb 12 - 22 week 2 & 3 (mid-term holiday)	get our lines learned research on the play	watch Waiting for Godot film
Feb 26 - Mar 1 week 4	cut out 1 hour from our 2-hour play	go through the whole play again to see if everything fits
Mar 5 - 15 week 5 & 6	able to work on the first 10 minutes of Abdul and Abe (Estragon and Vladimir) focus on their entrance and Pozzo’s entrance without the pig (Lucky)	Get feedback from others from the beginning until my entrance, enhance our performance before we move on to the rest of the play
Mar 19 - 22 week 7	Focus on my every movement and blocking, and interactions with Lucky(n/a)	Stable my energy and performance before I get someone to be the pig
Mar 26 - 29 week 8	able to work through 5 more pages of the play (without Abdul’s absence) go through the beginning by reading in for Abdul so Abe could rehearse.	It’s our responsibility to be able to continue working even though we couldn’t get a full attendance
Apr 2 -5 week 9	slowly but progressively work through the script	make sure every changing bits in the play look natural
Apr 9 -19 week 10 & 11 (Easter break)	learn our lines again with all the notes we worked for discuss about lightings and costumes and props	receive feedback from tutors and make some final changes for the performance
Apr 23 - 26 week 12	able to do a full run without the pig get in touch with Vadim about our lighting and staging	rehearse as if we’re on stage
Apr 30 - May 3 week 13	focus on my bits with Chloe (the pig) take a few run through with only both of us	rehearing separately so we could all focus on what we want to work on
May 7 - 10 week14	finalise lighting and stage setting	dress and technical runs
May 14 week 15	PERFORMANCE DAY!!

Achievements

What skill do I need for a role like this?

As a grumpy old man, my body gesture and voice is what makes me believable. Even if I don't look like it, I need to sound like it, that is my primary objective on stage. It is hard picking up the slang because of the different language being spoken throughout my life. Stanislavski's System will be used during rehearsals to increase the spiritual realism in my acting.

A technique I've learned from Uta Hagen is to transfer our own memories into the experiences of our character, think of the similar experiences in our lives and use them in our acting, this is an easy way to understand my character in and out. I’m going to use my observation on the elderly's mannerisms, and portray them in my own way. 

My objectives as Pozzo? how do I achieve them?

The reason I treated Lucky in such way is to show how powerful am I and he should be proud of having a master like me. When I first met with Vladimir and Estragon, I did not say it directly but I really wanted them to stay because I’ve been lonely for years after Lucky stopped speaking, I even wanted them to be my slaves. I wander around the country road every day just like the tramps waiting for Godot, my life has been so dull and unproductive for long enough. Even though Pozzo is a very old man, I do not want to diminish the verve he brought to the play. To achieve a clear difference of class between Pozzo and the tramps, it is to perform this character in a wiser way. Estragon and Pozzo were facing the same problem which they both got short memory, this play shows the hopelessness of them both immediate. In order to make my character stands out, is to speak confidently like I know everything even if I don't, this makes a clear characterization of the upper and lower class. 

Rehearsals

There were several problems we faced during our rehearsals. The one that makes everyone stress out was when one of our actors decided not to show up in most of our rehearsals without giving any reason. This has brought so much trouble to two other members that are trying their best to rehearse. Without the actor, we could only make our rehearsals work with both of us taking turns to read in for him, this has caused us so much time. After a few times of parties incomplete for rehearsals, I really think everyone should be responsible enough for what you've chosen and should think of what trouble you might cause for others with your careless attitude. Less than one month before our show, we decided to speak up for ourselves and make things more serious to let that actor know that we see this show so important that we've worked so much on it, it's really the time for him to grow up and be responsible. We will not make it to the show if he keeps acting like this, without the team spirit. 

Things started to go smoothly after, we discussed on the lightings and music we want to use during our performance. 

lighting

We did not have many changes on lighting, all we did was to show time changes from morning until night and night until dawn. 

navy-purple as dark night. 

orangey red as the moment
of an evening sunset. 

Music

• You've got a friend in me by Robert Goulet. (beginning and the end of our show)

We think there's nothing more suitable for this song as this play represent both friendships between Vladimir and Estragon, also Pozzo and Lucky even though it's not obviously shown in the play, Pozzo relies on Lucky just like a person relying on his friend. 

Here are some pictures taken during dress and tech run. 

Unit 12 WAITING FOR GODOT (research blog)

Waiting for Godot Human Life

There is no apparent meaning to our existence, and yet we suffer as a result of it. The world seems chaotic. We therefore try to impose meaning on it through pattern and fabricated purposes to distract ourselves from the fact that our situation is hopelessly unfathomable. "Waiting for Godot" is a play that captures this feeling and view of the world, and characterizes it with archetypes that symbolize humanity and its behavior when faced with this knowledge. According to the play, a human being's life is totally dependant on chance, and by extension, time is meaningless. Therefore, a human's life is also meaningless, and the realization of this drives humans to rely on outside forces, which may be real or not, for order and direction. The basic premise of the play is that chance is the underlying factor behind existence. Therefore human life is determined by chance. 

"It's a reasonable percentage". The idea of percentage is important because this represents how the fate of humanity is determined; it is random, and there is a percentage chance that a person will be saved or damned. Vladimir continues by citing the non-concordance of the Gospels on the story of the two thieves. Beckett makes an important point with this example of how woven into even the most sacred of texts that are supposed to hold ultimate truth for humanity. Of the four, only two report anything peculiar happening with the thieves. Of the two that report it, only one says that a thief was saved while the other says that both were damned. Thus, the percentages go from 100% to 50%, to a 25% chance for salvation. This whole matter of percentages symbolizes how chance is the determining factor of existence. 

It is the same reasoning that Vladimir uses in his remark quoted above, "It's a reasonable percentage." But it is God's silence throughout all this that causes the real hopelessness, and this is what makes "Waiting for Godot" a tragedy amidst all the comical actions of its characters. Either God does not exist, or he does not care. Whichever is the case, chance and arbitrariness determine human life in the absence of divine involvement. The world of "Waiting for Godot" is one without any meaningful pattern, which symbolizes chaos as the dominating force in the world. There is no orderly sequence of events.

The entire setting of the play is meant to demonstrate that time is based on chance, and therefore human life is based on chance. Time is meaningless as a direct result of chance being an underlying factor of existence. Hence there is a cyclic, albeit indefinite, pattern to events in "Waiting for Godot". Vladimir and Estragon return to the same place each day to wait for Godot and experience the same general events with variations each time, It is not known for how long in the past they have been doing this, or for how long they will continue to do it, but since time is meaningless in this play, it is assumed that past, present, and future mean nothing. 

Post-war period in France

The post-war years saw the state take control of a number of French industries. The modern political climate had however been for increasing regional power and for reduced state control in private enterprise.

Waiting for Godot was written at a time period that has ambiguous ties to the cultural context of the play itself. Samuel Beckett wrote Waiting for Godot sometime between 1948 and 1949 in France. In the aftermath of World war II, the loss of regional and traditional culture, the poverty of many rural regions and the rise of modern urban structures have created tensions in modern France between traditionalists and progressives. Compounding the loss of regionalism is the role of the French capital and the centralized French State. Cultural ideas such as Surrealism affected, and were affected by the arts. The changes brought a critique of the ideological foundations of western civilization, and traditional values faded. Surrealism, which began in the early twenties, was able to resurface after the war and make an appearance in works such as Waiting for Godot. In Beckett's play, this cultural context can be found in moments such as Lucky's speech, when a stream of consciousness can also be seen in Vladimir's memory of events that stir no recollection for Estragon.

French Literature
The 1950s and 1960s were highly turbulent times in France: despite a dynamic economy, the country was torn by their colonial heritage (Vietnam and Indochina, Algeria), by their collective sense of guilt from the Vichy Regime, by their desire for renewed national prestige, and by conservation social tendencies in education and industry.

Inspired by the theatrical experiments in the early half of the century and by the horrors of the war, the so-called avant-garde Parisian theatre, "New Theatre" or "Theatre of the Absurd" around the writers, including Samuel Beckett refused simple explanations and abandoned traditional characters, plots and staging. Other experiments in the theatre involved decentralization, regional theatre, "popular theatre", and theatre heavily influenced by Bertolt Brecht (largely unknown in France before 1954). The Avignon festival was started in 1947 by Jean Vilar who also important in the creation of the Theatre National Populaire (T.N.P.).

Master-Slave Relationships

The relationship between slaves and their masters, it was characterized by what may be called a mutual dependency: the master was dependant on their slaves' loyalty and the slave dependant on master's maintenance and humane treatment of him. While slaves had to bow to their master's wishes under the constant threat of punishment, they could also become indispensable to them, function as their confidants, and be party to their secrets.

The history of Georg Hegel's perspective
Hegel constructed his master-slave dialectic based on these concepts. It proposed that, from the first moment of history, two figures are formed: the master and the slave. The first one imposes themselves on the second. They do it by not recognizing their desires. The master objectifies the slave, who then has to give up their desire for recognition, basically out of fear of dying. Thus, a form of consciousness arises in the dominated. They begin to recognize the other as the master and starts seeing themselves as the slave. Therefore, they're unable to shape their self-consciousness; they just assume that the master's opinion is all matters.

Since the beginning of history, there have been dominators and dominated people. The master is a recognized entity, while the slave is in charge of recognizing. The slave stops being an autonomous entity and becomes something shaped by the master. Due to that dominance, the master coerces the slave and forces them to work for them. Said work is not the slave's creative process. Instead, it's an imposition that makes them the actual object of work. However, the master ends up depending on the slave to be able to survive. And there's always a moment in which the tables turn. The slave is indispensable for the master, but the master isn't indispensable for the slave.




Bibliography (Harvard Format)

EssayChief,(2019), Example research essay topic: Waiting For Godot Human Life, available at:
https://essaychief.com/research-essay-topic.php?essay=148356&title=Waiting-For-Godot-Human-Life


"20th-century French literature", Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Wikipedia: The Free Encylopedia, 9 June 2019. Web. 29 May 2019.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th-century_French_literature>


"France in the twentieth century", Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, 9 June 2019. Web. 29 May 2019.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_in_the_twentieth_century>


Hezser, C. (2005), Jewish Slavery in Antiquity: Master-Slave Relationship. Oxford Scholarship Online. Available at:
http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199280865.001.0001/acprof-9780199280865-chapter-8


ExploringYourMind,(2018), Hegel’s Master-Slave Dialectic. Available at:
https://exploringyourmind.com/hegel-master-slave-dialectic/

Waiting for Godot general research

Stage setting
The set in Waiting for Godot is the same throughout the whole play. It starts with a country road and a bald tree, and ends with the tree had grown some leaves on it. We could add some bigger rocks to make it more realistic as a country road.

an example of the set. 

We decided to replace both white blocks as two small hills to a bench. It looks nicer and blocks look kinda weird from a random country road.

Roughly set up for the stage 

side profile of the stage when
Estragon and Vladimir enter.

Costumes

Pozzo
As a wealthy man who owns a land, I can dress in a formal suit with a hat which is mentioned in the play. Leather mocassins or boots will suit my identity in the play.

This is what I came up with my costumes. The visible white socks show an organized personality of Pozzo, and I think this matches the style in mid-1900.
















Kapp and Peterson

Peterson: Kapp Royal (221) Fishtail

Kapp & Peterson Limited manufactures pipes and pipe tobacco. The company was founded in 1865 and is based in Dublin, Ireland

the prop I am going to use during performance

Lucky
As the human pig, slave of Pozzo, nothing can suit him better than tattered clothes with dust all over. It shows that he's been working and carrying stuff all the time.

Vladimir and Estragon
Both of them are vagrants and have met each other after a long while, probably after the war. According to their class, they should wear baggy clothes with boots and messy hair.

Evaluation for A CHRISTMAS CAROL

12th & 13th December (Wednesday & Thursday)

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

We are going to perform three same performances on both days. The first one on Wednesday will be recorded by a camera and there will be students from a secondary school to watch our performance. We were to stay frozen on stage while the audience was coming in to take their seats. I was a christmas tree for my tableau, my arms were hardly lifted after a few minutes. After the first performance, I changed my tableau slightly by lifting them a little bit lower so I don't get tired in a short time.

Tableau at the beginning

What Went Well?
We used the skill "cheat with our feet", which we learned from last year (Link to the blog). A Christmas Carol has quite a lot of ensemble scenes like parties or on streets, whenever I was in it, I tried to stay some distance away from each character so those scenes make more sense with people all over the space. Other than that, we picked up our ques as fast as we could so we won't make the audience to wait for long, but at the same time, during each scene, we paused for a bit when is necessary for the audience to have time to understand the play. I think I did really well in every beginning for all three performances when I'm the solicitor, I showed my face being annoyed by Scrooge as I've gone to him every single year asking the same thing from him.



Even Better If...
During the second performance on Thursday, I was told to speak louder in the Cratchits scene. When I went on stage, I need to show more of a mother figure so they will know that I am someone they need to be focused on there. I should sound like I am shouting at the kids wanting them to stop playing and answer my question, as I was busy all day cleaning the house and preparing for the christmas dinner. In Fred's party scene, I can be more active and have more interactions with the guests other than only listening to Fred. For example, in the guessing game, I could talk to the person beside me, trying to ask her for some ideas, this will make the game more interesting to watch, because the audience might get more intense if they see us guessing it so hard like we're actually playing.

Overall for our performances:
I think we all did amazing work, we got the audience involving with the scary Marley coming from behind them. I personally love our dances, I can tell we're making the audience to want to move their body following the music. We've input so many materials in this show, for examples, the seriousness of Scrooge's changing, the pitiful family, the happy ending, also the dances the songs to entertain the audience. That Christmas vibe we brought to everyone is so strong that I can barely remember the Christmas is not here yet.




The link below to the full video of our performance
http://youtu.be/DAzG7F3mfCc

Term 1 Unit 11 Essay Acting on a stage and on screen, which requires more skills?

The acting community is gaining bigger year after year, there are two types of acting industry which is stage acting as well as film acting. Despite the long history of the tradition of the theatre, it's long been deemed as an activity for the higher class and while this has started changing in the last century, film has since become the media of choice for most people. However, what can the stage offer that the screen can't? Masses of audience nowadays are asking for more quality productions from the actors in each or both industries. In the same standard of productions, is there truly any difference between the long-separated worlds of theatre and film? Or one of them do require more skills than the other?

Me as a drama theatre student, the most obvious difference for me is the audience between theatre and film. In a theatre, actors and audience are separated by a distance ranging on a small sized stage from a few feet to hundreds of feet in a large auditorium. Actors were told to exaggerate their movements and expressions also to project a loud and clear voice during each of their performance because when everyone in the audience is here, they need to be able to listen and see them clearly, especially from the last row. Audience needs to see their faces but not their back, actors have to be very aware of where they are standing and which side are they facing. As for screen actors, their audience can watch them in every angle depending on how the director wants to film it. The audience can be looking into the actor's eyes watching tears flow down or looking at the big city from above the sky. Screen actors are only allowed to do smaller movements and simpler facial expression because they need to look natural with every single cell in their body, sometimes they do not know how big or small to show their expression, it may cause them looking stiff for overdoing it to act natural. They need to know where the cameras are all the time to prevent walking out of the frame, some directors only allow their actors to move in limited spaces in order to get the perfect background.

The next difference between stage actors and screen actors is time and set. For theatre actor, they got plenty of time to do rehearsals, to get to know their role as well as their partners in different scenes also a few full runs before the real show, by the time they perform it to the audience, they have practiced dozens of times. The sets in theatre are always sorted out and organized beside or at the back of the stage as they need to bring all that out to change the whole scene when necessary. In the opposite, film sets are chaotic places packed with cameras, lighting lamps, audio equipment and wires everywhere as all the equipment are not built in like in theatre. While the actors are being filmed, it is possible that hundreds of crew members might be walking beside them. Film actors do not get too much time to learn their lines as those scripts are still possible to be changed until director shouts "Action!". In the same scene, film actors may get a chance to take numerous takes with different dialogue which the production group will then cut and change in the edit.
The atmosphere while watching a show in a theatre or on a TV is vastly different too. A theatre performance will never be duplicated in the cinema, it feels more current and real when the audience is a matter of feet away from the show rather than on the other side of the globe. A show like this cannot be redone in the same way ever again that everyone in the audience will share that specific experience. Theatre performance is a matter of exclusivity because once the show is over, it's gone for good, only the people who bought a ticket could enjoy it. Most of the theatre in London only focus on doing one play in the entire theatre, for example, Palace Theatre only perform Harry Potter, Fortune Theatre only perform The Woman in Black, Queen's Theatre only perform Les Miserables, and a few more that only perform the same play over and over again every day. These theatres' targeted audience will be those that love the play and the style the actors perform it in live, most of the audience most likely watched everything on film before they watch the live performance.

By comparison, films can be enjoyed over and over again, in the same way you watched it the first time. The best of it is that people could enjoy it anywhere they like, at the place they feel comfortable with. Films are attractive to most audience because of the unrealistic story that will never really happen in real life but film productions are able to make it happen with effects and dramatic movements from the actors also with the help of amazing work from screenwriter and producer. Some films do reproduce the atmosphere you can find in the theatre, that having two levels of performance in one single production to reduce the space between actor and audience. "High School Musical" and "Friends" are two of the examples that incorporate the same elements of showing the audience the 'reality' behind the camera.

The examples from above are some obvious differences from both industries. Let's begin with the ocean deep of skills that the actors need to develop and how these skills will be used in their own field. Scripts for the stage actors are often not allowed to have any large changes due to the popularity of that play, it will embarrass the actors when famous dialogue is said wrongly, the show wouldn't make sense for the audience at the same time. Stage actors need to be a fast thinker that can improvise anything in their brain as well as acting out, also need to have enough creativity to fix their mistake when they're halfway through their performance. I don't believe in the say of "the audience won't know if we did wrong", well they actually will know because as I said from above, most theatre audiences knew what they are getting in to and the 'professional' ones might've watched the show many times before, they just indulging in theatre performance because they love it so it doesn't mean they don't know if we did wrong, actors obviously don't want the audience saying "I watched a better one last time". Back to the point, improvising skill is really important for a stage actor as they have so much time to understand the whole play and their own character, they are more likely to able to think of another way interpreting that moment.

On the other hand, improvising isn't so important for screen actor, because the director will be trying every way to make the scene trustable, actors try as many of dialogues as they could ever imagine just to make that moment right, then, it will be film editor's job to cut and put all short scenes together. Actors have to be aware of continuity each time they perform a scene on camera because they will never know which take will ultimately be used, so they need to be consistent. Other than being consistent for each scene, they also need to worry about the continuity between different scenes. For any of their own reason, film and TV always shoot their scenes out of order, they might shoot scenes from the end of the movie first and there's also a very high probability that the actors only get to shoot their first scene on the last day in set. If your character is violent at the beginning but somehow become nice at the end, you might not sure of what really happened earlier and how aggressive you were before becoming the good one, you always need to hold your emotions and acting energy on track in case you fail to act accordingly. It wouldn't make sense for the audience also for the editor to edit if your characteristics keep changing throughout the whole movie.

If I'm still thinking one of the industries still require more skills than the other, it's just because both were facing the completely different struggles. A movie might take half a year of the screen actors' time to stay on set, and at the same period, actors were not allowed to work in another movie set as one of their contract procedures with the company, the money they earn all depends on the popularity of their movie which will release another half a year after they done shooting. In a year of time, stage actors might already perform two big shows, their working time is more flexible and productive. That's the reason why screen actors earn more than stage actors, they took the one year risk to shoot for a movie they don't even know if the audience will like it. Each has their own difficulties, there is no point for comparison as the main objective for an actor is to bring joy and experiences for the audience, no matter they're in a theatre or in the cinema.

Research links
https://reelscene.co.uk/stage-and-screen/
https://www.theedgesusu.co.uk/features/2017/03/14/stage-vs-screen-battle-of-futility/
https://theatreanddance.appstate.edu/students/prospective-students/25-life-skills-learned-theatre
https://www.mymajors.com/career/actors/skills/

November 6th - 10th week

Week 6

On Wednesday, we did two dances for the party scenes with Mandy and Sharon.

Week 7

On Wednesday, we did a full run through with dances and singing without stopping. Throughout the rehearsal, there're still moments that we don't know when to enter and exit. We then worked on both party scenes with dances which is the Fezziwig's office party and Fred's house party.

On Thursday, we worked on the personalities of our character, we need to find what I say to others and what others say about me in the play. I did my character of Fred's wife thinking where and when we met each other and my personal back-story, also the house when Fred and I live.

I wrote about the party scene and also my back-story.

Abe wrote about his first scene in the play with Scrooge
and how Fred and his wife met
also his family background.

The house where Fred and his wife live. They live in Central London.
I drew this house according to Abe's information for the houses in Victorian times.

Week 8

On Wednesday, we did some creative stuff in a group with Mandy. Here are the videos.

The second one here is the final dance before the performance end where all casts will be involved. 

Week 9

Monologue assessment (check unit 10 monologue blog)

Week 10

We've been rehearsing in the theatre this week. 

upstage - space for the characters
downstage - the dining area for the Cratchits